Hope

Here's the deal. I have started this post at least 100 times, and I can't finish it for a number of reasons. The post is supposed to be about our adoption process. Most days, however, I cannot find the words to communicate what is going on behind the scenes. This is probably due to the fact that most days are ended without any more of a clue as to what is going on than the day before.

Days and months go by without an email, a phone call, or any update at all. This is The Great Unknown I live in most days. I find myself looking at my missed phone calls and emails several times a day, hoping my caseworker's name will show up in one of them. One in a hundred days provides some hint of knowledge that leaves me only wanting more answers. Answers that God alone truly possesses.

He knows where our next child is now. He knows if his or her heart is beating, or if the baby has even yet to be conceived. He knows if this child will ever even come, or if it is merely an idea that will not come true. He knows the mother who will bear and birth our child. He knows our baby's gender, race, background, and face. He knows him or her well.

Now, if only I can rest in the fact that HE KNOWS. God's knowledge of our future, of whether He has more children for us or even another day for our own hearts to beat, should leave me with a sense of comfort. Of rest. Of joy.

Some days it does. Other days I am dizzy in a sea of confusion and unknowns. This is different from pregnancy. In pregnancy, you know how many days (approximately) are left, the gender (if you want), his or her health background, and a hundred other things. You feel a bit more "in control", even if it is a false sense of control.

I am not complaining. I am very aware that every child is a gracious, divine gift of God. I am so grateful for the one that I have. I am entitled to none but have been given one gift, and am on a journey to see if God would find it best to grant us another.

The journey is one of hope. Hope that at the end, there will be a child who will need a mother to nurture, teach, and love him. Though we do not like the spiritual disease that leads to a need for orphan care or adoption at all, God has seen it fit to redeem the system in a myriad of ways.

However, it has become clearer to me that hope, not placed in Christ alone, is in vain. The end is not a wonderful addition to our family or even an orphan finding a home. The end, praise God, is Him. He is my blessed reward. My prize. My crown. This, sweet friends and family, is sustaining me. For if all that is waiting for me, though it is beautiful, is our next child, I have hoped in vain. If Christ is not in care of orphans, I can let the dream go. But if He is in their care, in their little faces, in their smiles, in their tears, in their pleas for a home, and I believe strongly that He is, I want in! Completely, totally, and utterly in!

I would ask that as the Lord brings our family to mind over the next, few or several, days, weeks, or months, that you would please pray for us. Most of all, that you would pray for our hope to be in Christ alone. He alone is worthy. The only end worth hoping for.